


Swallowed Up in the Past and [Life Didn’t Notice]

by LadyPrince



Category: Borderlands (Video Games)
Genre: Blood, Canon-Typical Violence, Cutting, Emotional Manipulation, Gun Violence, M/M, Strangulation, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-08
Updated: 2019-03-08
Packaged: 2019-11-13 18:57:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18036992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyPrince/pseuds/LadyPrince
Summary: Timothy and Vaughn saw Helios crash hours ago, and now it’s time for them to go and find survivors and most important of all… find Rhys.But when Timothy finds him, he’s in for a nasty surprise.





	Swallowed Up in the Past and [Life Didn’t Notice]

**Author's Note:**

> An anonymous commission originally posted on tumblr.
> 
>  **Original publish date:** 21st of April 2016

The moment Vaughn and Timothy catch sight of Helios falling and crashing is exactly four hours ago now. Maybe they took far too long, but it’s not that they could really be blamed for it. Helios has crashed somewhere that’s not registered on the fast travel station [or rather, it’s not registered on _either_ of their sides], and Vaughn had to chase after Timothy in his isolation for them to get their lover outta there.

There may have also been a very long panic attack at the sight of the crash. _Rhys_ was in there; Rhys, sweet Rhys the company man who helped Timothy escape and still kept in touch so long ago. Rhys, who went in far too over his head and may—

No. No he’s—he’s definitely not dead.

He swallows loudly and Vaughn looks at him from the passenger seat of the car, his hands curled up on his lap and a gun by his side… just in case.

[Timothy has lived long enough on Pandora to know that you don’t just wander around unarmed. Someone will kill you, and that someone may even be your friend.]

“You think Rhys is…” Vaughn begins, his catching in his throat and his eyes widen. He can’t look at Timothy and looks down instead, at his hands, at dirty palms and his tattered trousers and shirt. “He’s… he’s there, right? I mean he can’t have just—up and left!”

Timothy exhales, but he doesn’t respond. “And there are _probably_ some other people there? Maybe we can save them! We can save them, right?”

“Yeah—I mean, sure, yeah we can—we can save ‘em. I’m a friggin’ hunter, we can… probably. Probably save ‘em.” Timothy says, trying and failing to be optimistic, and Vaughn looks up at him briefly before he’s looking back at road.

They don’t talk until they finally get to the crash site, and Timothy gets out and gives Vaughn a flashlight. He _still_ needs a digistruct device [and he wonders why he didn’t get even the cheapest one of ‘em all] and Timothy is a tad agitated at that, but he doesn’t say anything as he pushes himself away from Vaughn and starts searching.

It takes a long while. There are a lot of people he knows and doesn’t know in the wreckage—accountants, middle managers, programmers, scientists… he briefly remembers Gladstone Katoa, and his heart clenches up in his memory.

He shakes his head then and runs his free hand through his hair, the darkness of the area getting worse as the short night finally decides to make itself known. In his search, he finds lots of… broken memories, in a sense.

Paintings, propaganda, statues… there are a lot of things here that are nothing more than broken memories and fragments of his old life, and Timothy flinches at the idea of working here all his life.

[He’s lucky that Rhys was there for him so long ago, and now he’s back here again and not because of the best circumstances either.]

He finds Meg, at least, and she’s busy breathing too quickly and sobbing when Timothy tells her where to go, to find any others that she can, and she manages to stop shaking long enough to reassure Timothy that she’ll be fine.

The only person left that he knows is Rhys, and the search is taking far too long to find him. He steps over corpses, barely glances at them and reacts—he’s been in this business far too long to be hurt by the dead, but Timothy doesn’t know if the same applies to Vaughn.

Maybe it does, maybe it doesn’t. Some people grow up far too quickly in Pandora, and some people learn faster as well.

Just as he’s about to give up on _ever_ finding Rhys again, Timothy stumbles into the last place he’d expect to ever see again. It’s in bits and pieces, broken apart and torn to shreds by the crash, with nothing left but torn paper and broken statues and propaganda lying on the ground.

Jack’s face stares at him, staring up at him from the ground, and Timothy makes his way around the statue and he’s about to make his leave when he hears someone yell.

Rhys? It’s—It’s **_Rhys!_**

As though on autopilot, his legs end up sprinting him ahead and forcing him to go to the source of Rhys’s yell. He crawls through a tight squeeze, shoves away bits of debris, and comes to a sudden halt when he finds himself staring at the remains of Jack’s _actual_ office.

Rhys is at the desk, hands in his hair and body curled over, and he’s chanting to himself angrily—over and over again. With his heart in his throat, Timothy carefully makes his way over to Rhys. “Rhys? It’s—it’s me.” He calls out when he’s right next to Rhys, and his heart stops when he glares at Timothy with _anger_ in his eyes.

“You! You— _you **bastard!”**_ before Timothy can comprehend what has happened, Rhys is lashing out towards him. He jumps up with clumsy finesse, cybernetic and flesh fingers wrapping around his throat and they both go falling at the unceremonious lunge.

They roll around a little, and Rhys pins him down to the ground. He straddles Timothy, and he’s immediately clawing at the hands wrapped around his throat. “ _R—Rhys? Wha—what are you—_ “ Timothy forces out in between wheezes, and Rhys snarls at him.

There’s… there’s something familiar about—

“Ain’t _Rhysie_ here now, is he, pumpkin?!” Rhys yells out, and Timothy blanches. He closes his mouth and wraps his fingers around Rhys—Rhys’s— _Jack’s_ wrists, pushes and kicks at the ground and tries to get away, but Jack is glares at him and presses him down harder on the ground. “You— _you little shit! **You left me!”**_ Jack yells, eyes wide and glossy, and Timothy feels a lump form in his throat at the accusation in Jack’s voice.

“Jhhhk-“ Timothy forces out, but Jack slaps him hard and his head whips to the side. Thankfully, his throat is released briefly and his hands immediately come to feel at his throat. “Jahhk-“ he coughs out, but Jack is growling at him.

“You _left me! **You left me!”**_ Jack’s yelling again, his voice cracking and breaking, and Timothy tries to surreptitiously reach down for his digistruct device to retrieve his shock gun. If he can shock Jack, then maybe—maybe he can save Rhys from him. All he needs to do is knock him out and—

His hands are at his throat again, and Timothy curses at himself for forgetting to kick Jack off. He grabs at his right wrist with one hand and tries to use the other to digistruct his gun still—

Jack pins his arm down with his leg, his knee digging into Timothy’s arm painfully, and he tries not to scream and exhaust his oxygen. “You gonna _hurt_ me again?! You didn’t— _you weren’t there!_ I turn around to—to address you and you’re not _there! **THE VAULT WAS EMPTY EXCEPT FOR ME!”**_

Timothy’s heart rattles in his chest, his whole body tense as he waits for Jack to give him a moment of vulnerability. Something else wraps tight around his heart, like a restrictive set of rope, and he thinks it’s not only the fact that he’s being strangled that’s adding to it. “Everyone— _everyone_ I knew and _cared_ about **betrayed** me. My second—my second wife, my **_daughter,_** Moxxi, **you,** even—even Tassiter. Now _Rhys_ is one of ‘em— shoulda known, huh?”

Anxiety balls up in his chest as Jack continues to dig into him—it’s… it’s Jack. His _words_ echo with Jack’s attitude, but it’s _Rhys’s_ voice that is saying those words. It’s Rhys’s tongue that rolls them out, it’s Rhys’s face that is glaring at Timothy, and he can’t help the awful feelings that are forming in his chest and spreading all around.

Jack lets his throat go finally, but he does punch Timothy in the nose with the cybernetic. There’s a sickening crack that follows and he’s bleeding—he’s _bleeding_ already and Jack is breathing heavily on top of him. “All I ever wanted to _do_ was **save** this nacho-flavoured shithole of a planet.” Jack hisses out, his body trembling and eyes focused on Timothy’s once-familiar mismatched ones.

He grabs at the hand that Jack isn’t pinning down and Timothy stares at him as he brings it close to his digistruct device. “Bring out. A gun. Right now.” Jack hisses, and Timothy glares at him. His throat _hurts_ like a bitch, and Timothy wishes he could actually _talk back_ for at least ten minutes—do _something_ to distract the asshole above him.

But all he can do right now is glare at Jack and put off the inevitable, and Timothy doesn’t think it’s going to work that well. Jack pats his chest then, searching, and Timothy struggles when he realises he’s looking for his knife.

 _No—_ no no no, damn it! He bites his lower lip and tries to buck his hips, get Jack off, but the man plants his cybernetic arm on Timothy’s neck, the angle awkward and painful, and Jack lets out an ‘aha!’ when he gets the knife. The cybernetic arm gets off of Timothy’s abused throat then and he watches as Rhys’s body leans back, the flesh hand holding the knife up to his grinning face.

“Y’know,” Jack growls, “I don’t think you need that eye anymore.” Timothy’s struggle renews as Jack brings the knife far too close to his green eye, and it’s immediately burning as his fight-or-flight instincts scream at Timothy to _get the fuck away from this dangerous man._

Damn it— _damn it!_ Of all the people—of all the people that Jack could be in the head of, did it have to be Rhys? Did it have to be Rhys? He can’t bring himself to _hurt_ him and Timothy is sure that this is how he’s going to down.

Jack is going to shove a knife into his eye, and then he’s going to stab him over and over and over again until he can’t _bleed_ anymore.

He gasps when the knife digs into the meat of his cheek instead of gouging his eye out or something, and Timothy starts breathing slowly, shakily, and Jack groans from atop of him. “I _never_ wanted to hurt you, y’know that? I had _never_ thought about doing this to you, because I knew— _no,_ I **thought** I knew you’d never leave me.”

Saying that, Jack drags the knife down, cutting Timothy, and there’s even more blood on his face now. “I wanted you to be happy—wanted you, my little girl, and everyone here to have a good life.” Jack coos, “wanted Rhys to be happy too – then he had to betray me. Like _you_ did. Abandoned me when—when I needed him the most. Like _you.”_

“Timothy,” Jack says, and the tip of the knife slowly slides away from him. “ _Digistruct_ a gun, **_right now._** ” Jack demands, and Timothy’s chest rises and falls shakily. “ _Don’t_ make me actually remove your eye, pumpkin! It won’t be _nice at all._ Trust _me.”_

Despite his desire to not obey Jack, the fear wins out in the end and Timothy exhales. “ _Ohhkaih,”_ Timothy rasps out, his voice weak and pathetic even to his own ears, and he waves his hand near the digistruct device and grabs onto a pistol – it’s Atlas, not Hyperion, and Jack looks down at it and back up at him with rage in his eyes – and holds back the urge to spit at Jack.

“Good boy. Remember when we had so much damn _fun,_ kiddo? Huh? Remember that?” Jack spits out, and Timothy hates the way he flushes as memories start to rush in. “Yeah, yeah you _do._ ‘course you do.” Jack purrs out, almost fond, but then he’s lifting Timothy’s arm up and he digs the knife into Timothy’s arm and twists it.

He can’t help it—he screams in surprise more than anything, the walls of his throat feeling like they’re going to bleed at any moment now, and Timothy bites down on his lower lip to try and quiet himself. Jack swipes the gun from him then, thumbs at the muzzle, and Timothy hears a distinct click.

The safety is off.

He breathes heavily, pain and anger mixing together to form a horrid mix of fear in him, and Jack is staring into his very being. “Open your mouth up—“ he grabs at the knife and twists it again, and Timothy opens his mouth to cry out in pain, “ ** _wide!”_** Jack yells and he shoves the barrel of the gun into Timothy’s mouth.

“Ya heard it, right, Tim?” Jack hisses out, eyes wide and his thighs squeezing Timothy’s sides. “The safety’s _off,_ kiddo.” His finger playfully lingers over the trigger, and Timothy freezes up completely beneath Jack. “I could _kill you_ right now.” he drags the gun out of his mouth and shoves it back in, triggering Timothy’s gag reflex. “I could _blow your freaking brains out.”_

“Ain’t that scary to ya? Being on the _very_ edge of death.” Jack digs the gun in, and Timothy gags and chokes around it. “You _left me._ I felt my life was _over because **someone else** betrayed me. _Nisha stayed, though; outside the vault, she didn’t betray me, no. Never _did.”_

Jack’s breathing heavily, his brown and blue – no, Rhys’s brown and blue eyes glossy and fogged with lust. “This planet took her from me. _You’re_ part of Pandora now, kiddo. A Pandoran through and through.” He exhales. “Do you know what that means?”

He can’t respond, of course, but Jack doesn’t seem to really care about that. He tilts his head to the side and glowers down at Timothy. “Well? Do ya? Answer me, pumpkin! I’m feeling really impatient right now.”

Timothy shakes his head and Rhys—Jack grins a shark grin.

“It means _you_ killed her, kiddo.” Jack sings. “So… to be fair, _I have to kill you.”_

Everything in his world seems to end at that moment. Jack shoves the gun even further into his mouth, presses against the back of his throat, and Timothy’s eyes roll up as he starts to gag. He pinches his eyes shut, memories flashing beneath his eyelids as he waits for death’s embrace.

A gunshot resounds in the area, loud and terrifying and threatening, and Timothy realises one thing. He’s still alive.

Jack didn’t pull the gun out. It’s still in his mouth, choking him and saliva is building up, and Rhys’s body goes limp and falls atop of him. His eyes open immediately as the grip on him loosens and he shoves Rhys – Rhys’s limp, dead body off and scrambles away.

There’s a hole in Rhys’s head, where he’s been shot, and he’s—

He’s dead. His eyes are wide open and staring, tear tracks clear on his face as he lies down on his side, pathetic, sad, and his eyes are unseeing. Timothy knows—he knows well enough that Rhys’s skin is going to lose colour. Someone or something is going to eat him, and he brings the hand of his unhurt arm up and bites on his knuckles.

A muffled scream escapes him, distress travelling all throughout his body as he stares at the blood dripping from the bullet wound in Rhys’s head. “No— _no, why? **Why?!”**_ Timothy yells, and his blood is pumping with fading adrenaline and increasing anxiety and anger, and he straightens when he hears footsteps and the sound of something falling and breaking.

His head whips over to the source of the sound, his entire body tense and mouth opening up to scream hell and back to the person that shot Rhys and Timothy immediately chokes on his words when he sees who it is.

Standing there, with shaking hands holding a trembling gun, is Vaughn. Every part of the man is shaking, and he can even barely walk without looking like he’s going to crumble and fall apart at any moment. There’s a Jakobs gun in his hands, the very same one that Timothy gave him when they were going on the trip to here, and it’s trembling so much so in his hands that Timothy can’t even _imagine_ the horror and anguish going through Vaughn’s head right now.

Smoke is still escaping the just fired gun, and Vaughn is going back and forth from staring at his gun, at Timothy and at Rhys’s curled up, very much _dead_ body. “Vaughn,” Timothy calls out, and he winces at how quickly Vaughn’s head snaps up over to Timothy, “come here, okay? Come—come here.”

Vaughn’s mouth falls open, as though he wants to say something, but he closes it eventually and still holds the gun up as he shuffles his way over to Timothy. It takes a few minutes, but he waits and waits until Vaughn is finally standing next to him. His head is bowed down, shoulder and back shaking and trembling, and he sobs.

With his good hand, he reaches up and tugs Vaughn down and he finally drops the gun in his hands. He holds him close, presses his head against the shoulder of his uninjured arm, and Vaughn practically crumbles against Timothy.

“I shot—I shot him—“ Vaughn chokes out. “I should’ve—I should’ve— shot his arm, right? I should have shot—shot his arm, but I… he was… he was going to…” his voice gets louder and louder with his increasing panic and Timothy shushes him and holds him close.

But that doesn’t stop Vaughn from babbling; his entire body is shaking, shoulders quivering, and he eventually starts to wail into Timothy’s shoulder. He feels tear dampen the leather of his outfit, and Timothy rubs Vaughn’s back quietly. What else can he really say to him?

He looks over to Rhys’s corpse, and feels despair.


End file.
